Would you play D&D if [rule X]?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Would you play D&D if the following rules or design philosophy changed, and what would be your opinion of the change?

1) Instead of increasing HP and defenses as you level up, you only increase HP. (The idea being that defenses are how tough you are, and HP is how good you are at dodging and rolling with blows.)

That'd get me to stop. I stopped running 3.x years before it ended, and that was one reason I did so.

2) As above, but you only increase defenses. (The idea being that defenses are how good you are at dodging, and HP is how much flesh you can afford to have chopped off your body before you die.)

I'd be much less likely to stop over that, as it's a hell of a lot more realistic (in a good way!), but it would depend on how damage scaled.

I think I took part in a d20 Modern campaign like this. That seemed alright. It helps that in Modern damage doesn't scale very well (except melee damage, which was a mark against this).

Star Wars SAGA could probably handle this with some changes (mainly nerfs to feats that give multiple firearm attacks and Jedi class features that boost lightsaber damage).

I also almost took part in an online Modern campaign like this, but the DM just wanted everyone in heavy armor, and that was the "stick" to force us to do so. (So I dropped out, fast, before the first session once I realized how serious that was.)

3) Spells always took more than a round to cast, but were commensurately stronger. Getting hit during casting would disrupt your spell.

That would stop me immediately. It's like a badly written fantasy novel. Spending a round doing nothing isn't that much fun.

4) Movement wasn't tracked by square; instead, the battle had different arenas, and you could move between them as a move action. You can attack anyone in the same arena with melee attacks. Flanking and similar things are replaced by simply seeing which side has numerical superiority.

That wouldn't bother me too much, but it's a bit strange that you could easily hit someone in the back just due to having higher numbers. There would have to be some way of stopping them, if only reach weapons like pikes.

But maybe I'm overthinking it. Having numerical superiority in one arena (and getting flanking that way) wouldn't be that bad at all. FATE has an "arena" system (they're called zone) and it works pretty good, although there aren't any flanking rules, as it's rules-light.

5) There was a mechanic to inflict horrible wounds beyond simple HP damage during combat.

Depends.

Pathfinder has some feats that let you blind opponents on a crit, or stun them on a crit, or inflict bleeding damage, etc. That's cool, and gives you another reason to play a fighter rather than a barbarian or a PrC. Damage that lasts a really long time? Not so much. (Based on my experience playing Warhammer, ASoIaF and other slow-healing systems, even d20 Modern if you don't have someone with the Surgery feat.)

6) You could never get above level 6?

I wouldn't like that much. I could deal with Gamma World (cap at 10th-level), but to be fair, we reached 6th-level in only three sessions. I'm not even sure if we somehow managed to skip levels there. In any event, it was clear from the get-go that the GW campaign would only last for one adventure.

7) A typical combat exchange went Attack Roll -> Dodge/Parry Roll -> Damage Roll -> Armor/Toughness soak -> Damage inflicted.

That wouldn't stop me. That was a proposed house rule for my d20 Modern game, and Mutants & Masterminds actually works kind of like that, only damage is much more complicated (no actual hit points). I would hope there are rules for enabling low-damage weapons to get armor penetration or something, as my experience in Warhammer Fantasy showed that to be hideously suboptimal. (I played a noble character once, who started with a rapier. It did lame damage but opponents got -10% to parry or dodge it since it was fast. It was NOT worth the tradeoff.)

8) There was a sanity score that took damage from encountering scary or horrible things.

See my points about long-term damage above. If you can't heal sanity reasonably fast, that would stop me playing. That became a problem in a Warhammer Fantasy game I was in. There was in fact a way of treating insanity fairly quickly, but that type of brain surgery dropped your wounds value to 0, and healing those took too long.

IMO, healing the damage once per adventure would be alright. I wouldn't mind, in a Cthulhu-inspired adventure, if you could lose a lot of sanity and some characters might have to "stop" (essentially dead, but would in flavor terms be gibbering, hospitalized or otherwise unplayable) as long as each PC had a chance of getting through with some sanity, and you could quickly heal once out of the horrible zone. The biggest problem with insanity is a PC quickly becomes unplayable, and the player is obliged to put their PC out of their misery and come back as someone else.

9) There was a social standing score that took damage from attacks against your reputation.

ASoIaF and FATE do this well. It would depend on how quickly you could "heal" from social damage, and for that matter, what the penalties to having social penalties were. If everywhere you went, your bad rep followed, even to the point of ignoring logic (how do these farmers know who I am? It's not like the ravens flew here) that would be really bad. On the other hand, if you could avoid the penalties entirely just by walking to the next county, that's swinging the balance too far toward no-real-penalty.

In both of those systems, you can heal from social damage pretty quickly, but in FATE losing an intrigue can still inflict a long-term consequence. (For instance, our PCs nearly lost a long intrigue in FATE, and had we lost, would have had a consequence that any opponent could tag once for free in any situation where it would make sense. This is basically a free +2 bonus they can use against us, either on social skills, attacks, to resist a social roll or attack... For instance, making fun of Rep. Weiner's "excitement" is a pretty good freebie. While anyone could get a bonus by zinging that in a debate against him, it wouldn't automatically prevent him from winning a debate.)

10) Spells had a chance of going horribly awry and doing chaotic things.

Not a fan of this. Warhammer has this, and it's only fun for the caster. (And, more to the point, only people who like that kind of stuff would dare play one. We had a psychic who probably caused more damage to the party than anything we faced in a Warhammer 40K campaign. Naturally he wanted to fail those rolls.)

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

1) Instead of increasing HP and defenses as you level up, you only increase HP. (The idea being that defenses are how tough you are, and HP is how good you are at dodging and rolling with blows.)

That *is* how I play D&D, so yes.

2) As above, but you only increase defenses. (The idea being that defenses are how good you are at dodging, and HP is how much flesh you can afford to have chopped off your body before you die.)

Maybe. I'd probably just play Stormbringer or Runequest, instead.

3) Spells always took more than a round to cast, but were commensurately stronger. Getting hit during casting would disrupt your spell.

Yes. I've played D&D like this, using the Lankhmar supplement for 1e AD&D. Feels more "swords-n-sorcery" to me.

4) Movement wasn't tracked by square; instead, the battle had different arenas, and you could move between them as a move action. You can attack anyone in the same arena with melee attacks. Flanking and similar things are replaced by simply seeing which side has numerical superiority.

Probably. This doesn't sound terribly different from what I do when we don't use minis. 1e AD&D's system works well, for this: you have a general melee where the combatants don't necessarily have perfectly defined positions, but are assumed to be maneuvering around within. Flanking and such is determined by how many enemies you're facing. And of course DM judgment and situational circumstances (e.g. you're holding a doorway or a fixed position) can dictate common sense rulings that "overturn" those concepts.

5) There was a mechanic to inflict horrible wounds beyond simple HP damage during combat.

Eh, I dunno. I'm not so big on that with D&D. If you're talking about effects like poison or paralysis, I'm fine with it. If you're talking about critical hits, I'm less enthusiastic, as far as D&D goes. I'd be more likely to just play Rolemaster or Runequest, if I'm looking for this kind of thing.

6) You could never get above level 6?

I'd like it a little more granular than that. Maybe 12 levels.

7) A typical combat exchange went Attack Roll -> Dodge/Parry Roll -> Damage Roll -> Armor/Toughness soak -> Damage inflicted.

I'd just play Runequest.

8) There was a sanity score that took damage from encountering scary or horrible things.

In the right campaign, sure.

9) There was a social standing score that took damage from attacks against your reputation.

Again, in the right campaign, I think this could work.

10) Spells had a chance of going horribly awry and doing chaotic things.

Sure, that's cool.

 

[delericho]

I might like some of these; some of them I consider to be terrible (potential) rules.

But, ultimately, I'm highly unlikely to make my decision based on one rule - if the game overall is good, I'll run it; if it is not, I won't. (Regardless, I have a standing policy with my group that I'll play anything someone cares to run, even if that's FATAL.)

 

[Nagol]

Would you play D&D if the following rules or design philosophy changed, and what would be your opinion of the change?

First of all, I prefer to play as game reasonably close to how it was designed. Substantial alteration preferences has me looking for a game where the alterations are part of its design.

1) Instead of increasing HP and defenses as you level up, you only increase HP. (The idea being that defenses are how tough you are, and HP is how good you are at dodging and rolling with blows.)

I'm indifferent though if defences are static then attacks against those defences have to be static as well.

2) As above, but you only increase defenses. (The idea being that defenses are how good you are at dodging, and HP is how much flesh you can afford to have chopped off your body before you die.)

I'd prefer this somewaht to the hp inflation seen since 3E. Again though it could inflict massive damage to the system to limit hp damage.

3) Spells always took more than a round to cast, but were commensurately stronger. Getting hit during casting would disrupt your spell.

Maybe, depends on the magic system, the types of effects, etc.

4) Movement wasn't tracked by square; instead, the battle had different arenas, and you could move between them as a move action. You can attack anyone in the same arena with melee attacks. Flanking and similar things are replaced by simply seeing which side has numerical superiority.

I despise minis and defined battlemaps so that would be an improvement for me. Mind you, taking the tactical positioning out of the game will seriously impact power and effect crafting.

5) There was a mechanic to inflict horrible wounds beyond simple HP damage during combat.

Meh. Not so much. Most such systems end up penalising PCs and unlucky players. I prefer really fast char development systems if such rules are in play and the effects can be permanent.

[6) You could never get above level 6?

E6 play can be fun, but the level limit it immaterial. What is material is how much power can be accrued in the setting and what alterations to play occur because of the accrual.

7) A typical combat exchange went Attack Roll -> Dodge/Parry Roll -> Damage Roll -> Armor/Toughness soak -> Damage inflicted.

The Runequest/Ars Magica system; it adds quite a bit of time to attack resolution and gives the same result as if the attacker rolled two dice together and used the bell for attack and damage*.

8) There was a sanity score that took damage from encountering scary or horrible things.

Maybe, maybe not -- depends on if the score damage was permanent and the genre expectations the game was trying to emulate. For D&D, probably not.

9) There was a social standing score that took damage from attacks against your reputation.

Maybe, maybe not -- depends on if the score damage was permanent and the genre expectations the game was trying to emulate. For D&D, probably not.

10) Spells had a chance of going horribly awry and doing chaotic things.

Probably not. I never liked any of the incarnations of Wild Magic and saw M-Us fall out of favour in campaigns that enforced it. It becomes very problematic to balance a fun factor for a game where spells are reasonably common, reasonably commonly cast, and unreasonably unpredictable. I've seen a few systems where it seemed ok.


* Actually in AM's case it didn't since each die was a strress die which had open-ended successes and fumble chances. Each attack sequence took about 3 times as long as a D&D sequence.

 

[gamerprinter]

No. I like D&D as it is, well 3x/Pathfinder anyway.

I hate the concept of E6, and basically all the fiddly adjustments you suggest would not be D&D, rather some other fantasy RPG, which I don't have time to play another game system. The system as is (not 4e) if fine for me.

GP

 

[cyderak]

zzzzzzzzzzzz.........huh?.......what?

Oh yeah.....D&D.......

I shot that dying horse long ago.

They made their bed........Now lay in it.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Would you play D&D if the following rules or design philosophy changed, and what would be your opinion of the change?

1) Instead of increasing HP and defenses as you level up, you only increase HP. (The idea being that defenses are how tough you are, and HP is how good you are at dodging and rolling with blows.)

Sure. Like old-school D&D. Defense is really ablative hit points.

2) As above, but you only increase defenses. (The idea being that defenses are how good you are at dodging, and HP is how much flesh you can afford to have chopped off your body before you die.)

Depends on the details - -this is hard to pull off and keep fair to PCs.

3) Spells always took more than a round to cast, but were commensurately stronger. Getting hit during casting would disrupt your spell.

Sure, depending on how much stringer "stronger" is.

4) Movement wasn't tracked by square; instead, the battle had different arenas, and you could move between them as a move action. You can attack anyone in the same arena with melee attacks. Flanking and similar things are replaced by simply seeing which side has numerical superiority.

Odd, but I'd try it for a one-shot.

5) There was a mechanic to inflict horrible wounds beyond simple HP damage during combat.

Good for a one shot, but not a campaign; PCs are just exposed to too many dangers; they'd all end up as horribly wounded.

6) You could never get above level 6?

No problem! I prefer low level play.

7) A typical combat exchange went Attack Roll -> Dodge/Parry Roll -> Damage Roll -> Armor/Toughness soak -> Damage inflicted.

Probably takes too long in actual play, unless you remove a lot of other combat "options". If this could be streamlined -- roll two color-coded d20s, one is the attack roll, one is the armor penetration -- to speed up it could work.

8) There was a sanity score that took damage from encountering scary or horrible things.

Only if I'm playing Call of Cthulu.

9) There was a social standing score that took damage from attacks against your reputation.

No thanks.

10) Spells had a chance of going horribly awry and doing chaotic things.

Been there, done that, fun for a time, but not for a campaign.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Would you play D&D if the following rules or design philosophy changed, and what would be your opinion of the change?

Coming from a long time D&D gamer, currently running 4e but enjoys a variety of other game systems {CP2020, SW WEG, Star Trek LUG, FASA Aliens, Stormbringer, etc..}



1) Instead of increasing HP and defenses as you level up, you only increase HP.
Techincally, DnD 4e does this as your defenses stay relatively static compared to an equal level challenge. The advantage is that you have a range of challenges to play with.
The disadvantage is that at some point you get players going 'no problem, I can step off this 100' cliff and not even be bloodied'

2) As above, but you only increase defenses.
Has the issue of becoming glass cannons. It gets really hard to hit you, but once you do.. BAM. Dead.


Addition: 1/2: Increase neither, but increase your skills. This represents that you really don't change how hard it is to hit, nor how much 'damage' you can soak.
CP2020 does this and I love it. Downside: players don't really feel like thier character is much different at higher levels, so the game has to play different.


3) Spells always took more than a round to cast, but were commensurately stronger. Getting hit during casting would disrupt your spell.
I love Elements of Magic, so I bet you know my answer! The challenge is to avoid the 'nerf the mage or lose' aspect that higher level play can turn into. See 3x and earlier anti-magic zones.


4) Movement wasn't tracked by square; instead, the battle had different arenas, and you could move between them as a move action.
I like this for space combat where the 3 dimensional movement has to be more abstract. It gets harder with multiple characters. I love the battlemap for adding a tactical layer to combat, its just really hard to use and tends to pull my players out of immersion in the game.
So, for vehicle/space battles.. yes. Character scale? Not so much



5) There was a mechanic to inflict horrible wounds beyond simple HP damage during combat.
In 4e, use the disease track as a wound mechanic as 4e is rather abstract.
Generally, critical hits and the like can be a problem. I love Rolemaster's critical hit system. But it makes it harder to track details and can result in a loss of fun when a PC gets crippled, but not dead.


6) You could never get above level 6?
E6? For 3x games that would be excellent as that hits the sweet spot. I think 4e can go up to mid-paragon and still be okayish.



7) A typical combat exchange went Attack Roll -> Dodge/Parry Roll -> Damage Roll -> Armor/Toughness soak -> Damage inflicted.
Ala Stormbringer? I like the idea of having the targets skill play a part in combat, but for speed most DnD games assumes that the target 'takes 10'. Rolling a dodge/parry multiplies the swingyness of the attack unless you drop the attack rolls down to D10s... which alters all the +1 to hit things. FOr D20 games, I prefer that only one side rolls.
I do, however, prefer that armor could be split into AC boost {block attacks} and Soak {prevent damage} Finding the right balance on that math would be hard.


8) There was a sanity score that took damage from encountering scary or horrible things.
Oooh.. difficult. Mechanics ro represent how the player should respond in character? I love CP2020's alternate cyberpsychosis where you developed mental conditions as your humanity dropped, allowing the player to choose how it works.
I would like a mechanic to force a PC to react with real fear instead of the 'but my character would never wilt in the face of danger'.. yet not steal the power of choice from the player.


9) There was a social standing score that took damage from attacks against your reputation.
Tracking repuation that impacts social encouters would be good. I think Ptolus had a social ranking based on how much you spend on the lifestyle.

10) Spells had a chance of going horribly awry and doing chaotic things.
YES YES YES!
But then again, this is a game and it takes a certain player to enjoy the chaos and unpredictability. And a certain group to handle that player
In most games, this is chaos would not work out very well. As an option.

 

[Lanefan]

Would you play D&D if the following rules or design philosophy changed, and what would be your opinion of the change?

My opinion of the changes may or may not affect whether I'd play; those are two separate questions, and even if I didn't (or did) like one or more changes my decision whether or not to play will take many more variables into consideration than just these. But, as for what I think of the changes:

1) Instead of increasing HP and defenses as you level up, you only increase HP. (The idea being that defenses are how tough you are, and HP is how good you are at dodging and rolling with blows.)

Can't be done unless you do away with all types of armour and-or magical defenses. As characters gain wealth as they go along, they're logically going to try and improve their defenses. Their h.p. are going to improve as a simple function of advancement. Thus, both will improve. This option is not a change, as written.

2) As above, but you only increase defenses. (The idea being that defenses are how good you are at dodging, and HP is how much flesh you can afford to have chopped off your body before you die.)

That is a straight body point/fatigue point system (or wound-vitality, depending on your preference of terminology), which we use now. Your term for fatigue points is defenses, your term for body points is h.p., but it's pretty much the same thing.

3) Spells always took more than a round to cast, but were commensurately stronger. Getting hit during casting would disrupt your spell.

Spells don't need to take more than a round to cast and don't need to be stronger, but do need to take time *within* a round to cast and very much need to be interruptable. We play this way now.

4) Movement wasn't tracked by square; instead, the battle had different arenas, and you could move between them as a move action. You can attack anyone in the same arena with melee attacks. Flanking and similar things are replaced by simply seeing which side has numerical superiority.

In other words, largely simplify combat movement and then eyeball the rest. Works for me.

5) There was a mechanic to inflict horrible wounds beyond simple HP damage during combat.

Within limits, this can be a reasonable addition to any critical hit system where a crit. just does more h.p. damage. You need to make sure the campaign's pace is relatively slow, however, to allow healing time. (4e-type adventures, where the intent is to plow through the whole thing in one expedition without much resting, would certainly not work with this)

6) You could never get above level 6?

The only dealbreaker here, as I like that the game is open-ended. That said, I prefer what most would consider to be very slow advancement - 3e and 4e are both much too fast.

7) A typical combat exchange went Attack Roll -> Dodge/Parry Roll -> Damage Roll -> Armor/Toughness soak -> Damage inflicted.

Yuck. I'd play it if I had to, but combat would take forever unless the number of these sequences required per battle could be somehow greatly reduced (better chance to hit, fewer h.p. all round, etc.)

8) There was a sanity score that took damage from encountering scary or horrible things.

Take or leave - specific to campaign, I think.

9) There was a social standing score that took damage from attacks against your reputation.

Take or leave - specific to campaign and to DM's (and players') willingness to track another score along with h.p. The DM would also have to be willing to work this completely into the fabric of the game world and campaign.

10) Spells had a chance of going horribly awry and doing chaotic things.

If interrupted while casting, very much yes. We play this way now. We also have it that destruction of a magic item might trigger a surge. Magic should be a high-risk, high-reward thing.

11.) Saving throws that were not "all or none". Either requiring something like multiple saves, using saves to shrug off effects, or the degree of effect is dependent up how badly (or how well) you made your save.

Gradated saving throws, where the amount you fail or succeed by determines what happens to you, are worth looking at but a pain to implement...I tried once. The multiple save idea doesn't thrill me.

Lan-"I think RangerWickett is part-way to designing the game I play now"-efan

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) Instead of increasing HP and defenses as you level up, you only increase HP. (The idea being that defenses are how tough you are, and HP is how good you are at dodging and rolling with blows.)

2) As above, but you only increase defenses. (The idea being that defenses are how good you are at dodging, and HP is how much flesh you can afford to have chopped off your body before you die.)

3) Spells always took more than a round to cast, but were commensurately stronger. Getting hit during casting would disrupt your spell.
<..edit..>
5) There was a mechanic to inflict horrible wounds beyond simple HP damage during combat.

6) You could never get above level 6?

7) A typical combat exchange went Attack Roll -> Dodge/Parry Roll -> Damage Roll -> Armor/Toughness soak -> Damage inflicted.

8) There was a sanity score that took damage from encountering scary or horrible things.

9) There was a social standing score that took damage from attacks against your reputation.

10) Spells had a chance of going horribly awry and doing chaotic things.

I have played in D&D campaigns or other RPGs that had one or more of those mechanics. I was cool with it. However, some of those like the SAN score, Status score, and the expanded combat exchange start heading into the "Is it really still D&D?" realm.

4) Movement wasn't tracked by square; instead, the battle had different arenas, and you could move between them as a move action. You can attack anyone in the same arena with melee attacks. Flanking and similar things are replaced by simply seeing which side has numerical superiority.

That's a new one on me. I'd have to see how that worked in practice before I'd give a final yea or nay, but it wouldn't make me not even try a game.